Consumers Are Ditching White Bread For Wheat Bread

Rejoice Michael Pollan, it’s finally happening: wheat bread is almost more popular than white bread. Consumers are increasingly skipping past the Wonderbread for healthier-looking fare that either has “natural” in the name or whole grains visible through the packaging.

It’s part of a major turning of the tide. Packaged wheat bread recently surpassed white bread in dollar sales, according to Nielsen Co. For the 52 weeks ended July 10, wheat bread sales increased 0.6 percent to $2.6 billion, while white bread sales declined 7 percent to $2.5 billion. White bread is still ahead in volume, but the margin is shrinking. Americans bought 1.5 billion packages of white bread in the last year, a 3 percent decrease, and 1.3 billion packages of wheat bread, a 5 percent increase.

We find it tough to believe. Back in our day, white bread was what you ate to fight communists. Peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread? Please. Now, consumers care about what is cheap and what is healthy. How about you? Are you ditching white for wheat?

I buy Nature’s Own brand from Wal-Mart, and none of their bread products use HFCS. Plus, their products are the same cost or less than big brands like Wonder or Sara Lee, and the Nature’s Own bread takes up at least a third of the bread aisle.

HFCS isn’t bad for you, its just fructose instead of glucose, one of the three monosaccarhides needed and used by the body. Table sugar is glucose. Please, tell your friends, and read about it on wikipedia, as the rap HFCS gets is bogus. The reason people are told to avoid it is because its almost always found in foods that are already bad for you, i.e. soda.

But of course, let’s not mention HFCS’s effect on leptin production, possibly causing people to eat more than they normally would with actual sugar used. Don’t just copypaste the BigCornPolicyWonksite, sweetsurprise.com. Put some effort into it!

Watching that 6 months ago changed my life — it’s shocking to see such a major part of food science was ignored for so long. I’ve also lost 35lbs just eyeballing ingredients to pull sugar out of my diet (or at least foods that don’t need sugar!). Amazing how so simple a change can make such a world of difference.

Plus it’s the first nutritional lecture that’s ever made SENSE to me when he broke it right down into basic biochemistry.

Ignoring the health debate for a minute (I’d disagree they’re the same… the body absorbs different kinds of sugar differently. But let’s ignore that for the moment) manufacturers keep on using HFCS because of the subsidy for the US corn market to keep the price of all corn products down, and the tariffs on sugar in the US to keep the price double that of the global price.

Honestly, even if not for the health issue, I’d prefer not to consume HFCS because of the artificial way the government props up the corn industry. I don’t want to support that policy. The industrialization of corn has dramatically changed farming in our society, I’d argue for the worse.

Biochemist here. Table sugar is actually sucrose, a disaccharide comprised of glucose and fructose. HFCS is also glucose and fructose, but with 5% additional fructose.

How an extra 5% fructose somehow has an “effect on leptin production” has not ever been explained to my knowledge. On the other hand, the studies that seem to show increased appetite and increased intake of calories from the same amount of food seem sound, and I’ve tried to reduce my HFCS intake.

I go to the store and buy bread that only has ingredients that I can pronounce and are HFCS-free. There is a bakery within 5 minutes of my house that makes good bread and the organic markets are chock full of good grainy-bread goodness.

yep, me too, in fact, i will choose a white bread that has a basic ingredient list like yeast, water, flour and salt over a whole wheat bread with stuff I can’t pronounce. Which is why I can’t say categorically i buy whole grain bread.

This highlights a pet peeve of mine … “white bread” is almost always “wheat bread” in that it’s made from wheat (excepting relatively special things like potato bread which I thing still had about half wheat). I’m not just being pedantic, because I’ve talked to at least several people who would see wheat flour in the ingredients of a loaf and assume that it was mire healthy because “it has wheat!!”. So the practice of calling whole wheat bread “wheat bread” causes real problems amongst the uneducated.

I think what they’re going for here is “whole-wheat bread”, which isn’t that much longer. But it is being pedantic. I have trouble believing that ignorance would cause people to be confused on something like this that’s been in common parlance for decades.

If I’m not mistaken, wheat bread has exactly the same health value as white bread unless it’s advertised to be at least 7 grain? Then it has more fiber and it’s a more complex carbohydrate? Could be mistaken, but I think that’s what it is.

I think it’s the opposite. X-grain simply means they use X different kinds of grains (wheat, oat, etc.) but each grain could still be highly refined and relatively un-nutritious. Whole grain, on the other hand, means they leave in healthy parts of the grains such as fiber, etc. So whole grain is the important label, although I suppose many 7-grain breads also happen to be whole grain. See http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-multigrain-bread.htm

HFCS isn’t bad for you, its just fructose instead of glucose, one of the three monosaccarhides needed and used by the body. Table sugar is glucose. Please, tell your friends, and read about it on wikipedia, as the rap HFCS gets is bogus. The reason people are told to avoid it is because its almost always found in foods that are already bad for you, i.e. soda.

But of course, let’s not mention HFCS’s effect on leptin production, possibly causing people to eat more than they normally would with actual sugar used. Don’t just copypaste the BigCornPolicyWonksite, sweetsurprise.com. Put some effort into it!

(ok, i copypasted my own comment! sue me! so did the person i’m replying to!)

Not in product labeling though – in product labeling a bread labeled “wheat bread” may have very little whole wheat flour in it, basically enough to color it brown. Best to stick to the more precise term.

The term “brown bread” is used only anecdotally. Like, say, when ordering breakfast at a restaurant; options being along the lines of white, brown, or rye (note: mmm… rye toast); or mentioning that you need to pick up some brown bread from the store. For labelling in stores it is always “whole wheat.”

It’s estimated that 60% of Americans are living with an undiagnosed allergy to a common food item (wheat, corn, soy, rice, dairy). These allergies are low threshold, which means that they cause irritation of the digestive tract, but no serious side effects. However, long-term exposure to a food-borne allergy can decrease nutrient absorption and lead to polyp formation in the lower GI tract.

To sum up, if you feel better not eating a food, it’s probably bugging yer tummy.

alvarado street bakery is one of the healthiest…can’t really remember how cardboardy it is since I haven’t bough it since my store stopped putting it on sale. Arnold is pretty good if it is available in your location

When I make bread, those are pretty much the ingredients I use … but I often add things like thyme or rosemary or sage, because I like herb bread. I’ve never much cared for sliced bread from stores, but fresh home-baked bread has this alarming tendency to disappear.

We get Nature’s Own. http://www.naturesownbread.com/
It’s one of 2 breads that we can find in grocery stores that doesn’t contain HFCS. And it’s the only one that doesn’t charge you an arm and a leg for that “privilege”.

If you want tasty bread that’s reasonably healthy, try Arnold’s Oatnut bread. It’s got a good flavor, it has little pieces of oatnut in it to add a little crunch and it tastes great on a turkey sandwich or PB&J. . . That’s all we buy these days unless something else healthy is on a ridiculous sale

A big problem with our culture is we love low cost now at the expense of high cost later. Sure, you save $1.00 per loaf, but how much more will you spend on health care because you aren’t eating enough whole grain and fiber?

But I have to eat fewer slices of the wheat bread to get full than the white bread…..I used to LOVE white bread, but it doesn’t fill me up as much and I’d rather not have to eat 2 sandwiches a day for lunch. Which negates the entire savings of buying white bread

The only problem here is that the vast majority of what’s sold as “wheat bread” (Um, white bread is “wheat bread”, generally), is no different from white bread, except it’s slightly darker due to the addition of caramel color. It’s still crap bread. When I was a kid, we referred to the Wonder Bread type products as “kleenex bread” – it was a reference not only to the texture of the stuff, but also its nutritional content.

The idea is that consumers won’t notice the difference between “wheat bread” and “whole wheat bread”.

I can’t fathom why anyone would eat “white bread” and its ilk. You get more nutrition (and, for that matter, bulk) from a slice of real bread than you do from an entire loaf of the fake stuff.

In the last few years me and my wife have tried different kinds of bread, we really enjoyed potato bread by sara lee, that stuff is nice, lately we’ve tried some new stuff, oatmeal bread, not sure who its buy, but its made with whole grain oats as the first ingredient and it tastes pretty good.

Oroweat Winter Wheat bread is like manna from some carb-heavy heaven. I buy Oroweat pretty much exclusively because their no-HFCS policy means I don’t have to examine labels for the entire bread aisle.

A survey done by Nielsen Co. seems skewed to me anyway since isn’t it done by shoppers who scan their groceries at home later? How many people you think have those scanners (much like the TV ones)? Few. Especially across demographics.

I think it’s a taste thing. As a kid I detested wheat bread as well, but when I became a bit more aware of what I was eating as a teenager I started slowly changing what I ate (despite how my family sometimes mocked me). Now I can’t stand eating alot of things that I used to like as a little brat.

Now my family is grudgingly making the same transition when they realized I’m the only one with no high blood pressure or other issues, despite the family being cursed with vein problems and heart disease. I’ve got my brother partially converted, but the parents need a bit more work. X-D

I ditched commercial white bread over a decade ago, although I’ll sometimes make white-style breads at home. For commercial loaves, I always get whole wheat or multi-grain. I like to have actual flavor in my bread, even with PB&J ;-)

Many consumers assume that “wheat bread” and “whole wheat bread” are synonymous. The manufacturers exploit this confusion. If your intention is to eat whole grains for better health, you have to read the ingredient list. If “enriched wheat flour” is the first ingredient you’re holding a loaf of premium-priced white bread made with unbleached flour, perhaps with some food coloring to solidify the illusion.

Switching white for wheat? Actually, today, for the first time in what is probably a couple of years, I had a white-bread sandwich for lunch. And I have to say, I realized I had missed it. This was a couple of steps up from Wonder, but it was likely still chock-full of badness – and very, very tasty.

Fortunately, I wasn’t aware that one had to have an undying allegiance either way…

I never had to switch. I grew up on wheat bread and that’s what I’ve always bought. I only ever ate white bread when I visited my grandparents and I thought it was gummy and tasteless. And it is quite possible to find whole grain bread without HFCS. You just have to read the labels carefully.

Pumpernickel is my favorite, but the best kinds are expensive. I grew up on wheat bread, so that is all I’ve ever bought. It doesn’t surprise me that sales of wheat bread are higher-there are so many fancy pants brands of wheat bread out there now that cost like $5 a loaf. People who care about their health will spend more on food.

You can’t find a decent loaf of white bread at the grocery store anymore. It’s either styrofoam wonderbread, or whole wheat crap. I don’t think it’s because of true demand, I think it’s because people have gotten tired of the poor choice in white bread, and a certain segment of the population does truly want whole wheat bread, and it’s been misinterpreted as ‘everyone wants whole wheat bread’.

I’ve resorted to making my own again, because it’s the only real choice now.

I finally have our apartment converted to wheat. For a while it was white and wheat. Then it was wheat, and a loaf of white that we only ever used for grilled cheese. And now, since we eat a little less grilled cheese, it’s all wheat.

I imagine my husband would still choose white over wheat if they were both available, but he’s being weaned off of it.

I always had wheat bread as a kid. I prefer just about any sandwich on wheat. Sturdier, more flavor. The one exception, for whatever reason, is salami. I remember every once in awhile my mother would buy cotto salami and it just tastes better on white bread. I haven’t had that in years though.

Keep in mind that a lot of ‘wheat’ bread is just colorized and sugared up crap. Subway’s ‘wheat’ bread is a fine example of this – it’s probably worse for you than their white bread. It’s just fake bulls#@4 like most ‘organic’ or ‘artisinal’.

You want the good chewy chunky stuff where you can still feel the texture of the grains. Or old fashioned peasant bread of any sort.

Ditched it a long time ago for dense, delicious, HFCS-free whole wheat bread that I buy at our local health food store. I love this bread so much that I just bought a package to take on vacation with me because I probably won’t be able to find it where I’m going.

Going out on a limb for saying I love most all bread, but still prefer good ol’ white (unless making it myself). I laugh at my friends who tell me they eat healthy so they always but whole wheat/grain yadda yadda yadda, then turn something healthy into a monstrosity by adding a ton of mayo, greasy cold cuts, bacon, cheese, etc. It’s the same story of the person ordering 5 Big Macs and a Diet Coke. The whole wheat story means a whole lot more when people add they they add it to a lifetime plan of eating healthier. But hey, free health care is coming, so who am I to complain.

I cannot even eat white bread anymore after switching to Wheat bread (or Split-Top bread at the very least). And the cost isn’t that much different…50 cents more at most (for the store brand, which tastes fine to me).

I tend to choose bread based on whether or not it will aggravate my TMJ and make my jaw lock up when I eat. Right now, it’s one from a local bakery that may or may not contain whole grains, but makes a fine sandwich and possesses a texture that allows me to eat that sandwich.

Most “wheat” bread is less healthy than white bread. I prefer the kind with 100 kinds of grain and seeds. I see “micro-cellulose” bread back on shelves. Your “diet” will never benefit from sawdust as an additive.

FYI: not all ‘wheat” bread if real wheat. The package needs to say 100% whole wheat. I ditched white bread a long ass time ago when I wanted to lose weight and be healthier. I LOVE wheat bread and so does my husband. And we buy real wheat bread not white bread that is the colot of wheat bread but is technically still white bread.

If you dislike wheat bread, it’s probably because you didn’t give your taste buds enough time to acquire a new taste. I use to drink coffee with flavored creamer. I ditched that, too, and now I drink it black. It was gross as first but I am use to it now. America has some the most unhealthy people in it anyways. A bunch of over weight people that could care less about buying healthier items. You know, the people that order a diet coke with their extra large value meal.

p.S.- wal mart sells 100% whole wheat bread at a very cheap price. And I mean cheap. And it’s not white bread disguised as wheat bread.

I eat more Wheat Bread if it has more fiber. It is all about the fiber people. Otherwise the wheat bread is just a brown version of white bread. In most cheap wheat bread there is no “magical” properties in it. It will not cure cancer or stop heart disease or create peace on earth or stop reality from sucking so much. It is just bread.

The thing about grocery-store white bread is that it has no taste whatsoever. I have never understood why anyone would buy it, let alone eat it.

That said, I grew up in a home where all the white bread we ever had was homemade. We did occasionally have store-bought bread, but that was always rye or, rarely, whole wheat. I still follow this same pattern: If I want white bread, I bake it myself; if I buy bread, it’s rye, or whole-grain, or whatever. Even then, I occasionally bake my own rye bread.

So I admit my own personal experience has jaded me where grocery-store white bread is concerned.

Back in the 70’s I switched from fluffy white bread to Peppridge Farms or Arnolds white bread because it tasted better. Back in the 90’s I found Alvarado Street sprouted grain breads. If you read the panel on the bread you find it has more of everything you need than regular “wheat” breads. And don’t forget that “wheat bread” does not necessarily mean “WHOLE wheat bread,”
especially since most white bread is made from wheat and is therefore, also wheat bread.

Almost all bread is wheat bread. Even white bread. I suppose we should feel encouraged that people are increasingly buying bread they think may be healthier, but they are probably being fooled. Unless the label and ingredients list say 100% whole wheat, the loaf is probably only white bread masquerading — under cover of molasses coloring and a handful of whole wheat and a few seeds — as something more wholesome.

I’ve always eaten wheat bread. I eat 2 sandwiches 4-5 times per week for lunch and not once have I gotten white bread. I had white bread when I was a little kid and it just tasted like eating a sponge so never again!